OUTSIDER BOESKY, EX-WIFE BATTLE OVER MONEY

Janet Cawley, Chicago TribuneCHICAGO TRIBUNE

In a cramped, dingy courtroom light years from his luxurious past, disgraced financier Ivan Boesky and his former wife, Seema, are fighting one last battle over his claim for $1 million a year in alimony and half of her more than $100 million fortune.

The two, who shared 30 years of marriage and four children, are facing off in Manhattan Supreme Court in a scuffed second-floor courtroom with turquoise walls and dirty windows. In the building next door, Woody Allen and Mia Farrow are slugging out their own troubled relationship.

Boesky, 56, once known as the King of Wall Street, served 22 months in prison for insider trading and now claims he is broke. His wife, 53, is an heiress, the daughter of the developer who owned the Beverly Hills Hotel, and extremely wealthy in her own right.

Boesky basically contends it was his business acumen that made his wife wealthy and he is therefore entitled to a share of the profits. Lawyers for Seema Boesky maintain her husband wound up costing her money, not enriching her, in light of the $100 million civil settlement he paid on the insider-trading charges.

In addition, they contend, Boesky severely damaged the family's good name.

An underlying question, assuming Boesky did make his wife richer, is whether he did so through illegal business activities-and, if that's the case, whether he can successfully sue to retrieve such ill-gotten gains.

In the crowded courtroom of Judge Phyllis Gangel-Jacob, the airspace between the two Boeskys isn't just frigid, it's of iceberg quality.

As she testified Monday, Seema Boesky rarely mentioned her husband's name without a reference to his "criminal activities." At one point, she said of him, "with this kind of personality, there's never enough money."

Her answers under cross-examination were short and staccato like: "yes . . . yes . . . I believe so . . . I don't recall."

Both seemed to go out of their way not to make eye contact with the other.

Boesky sat on a wooden bench directly facing his wife, who was on the witness stand for a cross-examination that focused on past legal documents.

A well-tanned, lithe man with a leonine head covered by slicked back silver hair that curled up at collar level, Boesky yawned, fidgeted and doodled while his wife testified.

At one point, he leaned back, pulled up a trouser leg and then yanked up a knee-high sock.

At another point, he took out a small jar of handcream, deliberately applied some to each finger of his right hand and then rubbed the cream into both hands.